Fighting the Future
by MoonVeil
Summary: A strange scroll lands Sakura in the past and face to face with someone she'd happily hated for years. Unprepared for the world she’s now in, Sakura will battle enemies and her own heart as she tries to find a way home. OrochimaruSakura
1. Prologue: Touched

**Prologue;**

I looked into your eyes and saw a world that does not exist.

I looked into your eyes and saw a world I wish I was in.

_*Touched, Vast_

* * *

"You should not have come here, kunoichi," the man pointed out kindly. His smile was sardonic; amused.

Sakura rubbed her fingertips against the edge of her sleeve, keeping her eyes pinned on a spot somewhere high above his head, out of the range of his burning gold eyes. She couldn't bear to see them now—not when they looked like that.

He raised a long, arched eyebrow in questioning of her silence. "Nothing to say? Not even about my appearance?"

Sakura chanced a look at him and winced. Sasuke's face, twisted and cruel, stared back.

"You can't save him, kunoichi. He's gone now." He leaned back in his throne-like chair, studying his nails in a bored fashion. His body, however, didn't quite fit that air of ease. It was coiled, waiting for her inevitable attack. He would stop her within seconds if she gave of any sign of threatening movement, but that wasn't why she was here.

Sakura knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would die here, though it hardly mattered to her. She'd been dying inside for a long, long time. Death was the blissful sleep at the end of a long, difficult road. She was ready for it to end.

But before she died, she wanted to see him one more time, to make sure he really was gone. She knew he was, of course, but there was some part of her that held out—that hoped, maybe, just maybe, there'd been a mistake. That he was somehow still the person she'd known and loved. But it was a futile longing.

"Honestly, you Konohagakure ninjas will die for anything," he laughed. His laugh was a dangerous purr; like the edge of a blade running slowly over her skin, not cutting down through flesh, but biting. She hated his voice; despised it. There was nothing in this voice that she knew. Nothing that was familiar to her.

Sakura shut her eyes, closing herself away; hiding from the monster and the agony of the truth. His voice continued on as he delighted in her weakness. She didn't want to listen, but she couldn't shut off her ears as easily as she could her eyes. But in her momentary blindness, she could hear it—the husky note in his voice nearly lost in the silk.

It was the sound of the boy she'd known, something as recognizable to her as her own face. She could hear him, lost in the man; lost in the insanity. Sakura clenched her eyes tighter, trying to repress the tears that were burning just behind her eyelids, threatening to spill over. She had longed to hear this voice again, had needed to hear it just one last time.

"Well, I suppose it's time to say goodbye now kunoichi." He rose silently, his feet whispering across the cold concrete floors as he moved.

Sakura didn't open her eyes. The boy murmured softly in her ear, trying to reassure her. _"It's okay, Sakura. I won't leave you."_ Behind her eyelids she could see him smile; his warm aurulent eyes were comforting in the darkness. _"I love you."_

_His_ voice returned her from the dream. "Goodbye, foolish kunoichi."

She forced her eyes open, fighting the hysterical sob wrenching its way up her throat. She could feel the tears that were spilling over, but knew stopping them was a battle she'd already lost. Her words came out choked and pathetic, and she couldn't look into his face, not wanting to see that alien being again.

Instead she focused on her hallucination; the boy smiled back, offering the love she sought.

"I love you," she told him fiercely, feeling like the pieces of her heart were shattering as though it were made of glass. The shards were jagged and twisted. The man stared at her, no longer impassive, but confused. "Goodbye, Orochimaru."

The boy disappeared and the world went dark.


	2. Chapter One: Soul Meets Body

**Chapter One;**

And I do believe it's true, that there are roads left in both of our shoes—

but if the silence takes you, then I hope it takes me, too.

_*Soul Meets Body, Death Cab for Cutie_

* * *

Sakura sighed, feeling tired and sore, not wanting to wake up and head to the hospital yet. Recently Tsunade had been teaching her how to remove cancerous tumors from the body without damaging anything internal as she did so, and it was leaving her too exhausted to do much more than drop into bed the moment she got home. Sakura knew it was highly useful training, but she couldn't help but worry about the time she was losing to train her body physically. She'd never be able to keep up with Sasuke and Naruto like this.

Forcing her eyes open, Sakura stared ahead; expecting to see her familiar white-painted ceiling, with the small chips over her bed where she'd once accidentally lodged a kunai in the ceiling. Instead an opaque, niveous mist was clinging to the air all around her, making nothing but her own body visible.

Suddenly very awake and wary, Sakura sat up. Her eyes swept around her location, finding nothing but mist above and below her.

It was unlikely to be genjutsu, though she couldn't just ignore the idea. Sakura checked her vital signs just in case, finding that she seemed okay for the most part, though there was a steadily growing pain coming from the center of her chest, just centimeters below her collarbone. For now it was ignorable, so she pushed it aside and surveyed her white-surroundings, finding there to be absolutely nothing here but the mist.

"Crap," she muttered aloud. There was no echo and her words fell flat around her, so it couldn't have been a very big space. She had to decide now if it was time to move and try to find a way out, or to remain still until something happened. The girl crossed her legs Indian-style and rubbed her hands against her arms, trying to calm down. However, when she touched bare skin, she looked down to find that her clothes were missing.

Not exactly the best discovery, admittedly. But it could have been worse. Sakura shook her head hard, whipping short strands of pink hair against her face. She needed to _focus_. This wasn't getting her anywhere.

What had she been doing prior to waking up in this place?

Well, she'd gone to the hospital early that morning, cleaning up bedpans and making sure everyone was alright, healing small headaches and stiffness in patients. What next? Sakura moved her fingertips to her temples, massaging gently. After her routine checking of patients she'd been heading to continue work on the cancer removal, but…

_Oh._

There'd been a change in the usual schedule; she and Tsunade had gotten a new scroll to seal and add to the Hokage's hidden stash. It was a nasty jutsu involving melting off an enemy's skin. Tsunade wanted there to be no chance of anyone to getting their hands on it. Sakura chewed her lip fitfully, the whole of the afternoon coming back to her, leaving her feeling like there was a lead weight deep in her tummy.

Tsunade had left Sakura alone in the sealing room for a moment—just a split second. Sakura had used that time to do something foolish, something she known she'd regret later (and she was, as anticipated). She'd taken a scroll she'd helped to seal a few months earlier. It was an involved jutsu that promised to send the activator into the past at the risk of death, or worse. But Sakura had been willing to take the risk—the benefits heavily outweighed the danger.

She'd been studying the scroll for months, using the notes the man who had created the scroll had left behind. He'd left behind such a large amount of notes on his work to try and sway anyone from using the scroll. Sakura remembered almost every line in that notebook and there had never been anything written about winding up in a white world.

She frowned thoughtfully, rubbing a hand over her chest where the pain was growing; morphing into something burning; searing into her skin. She wouldn't be able to ignore it so easily, soon. Worse, though, than the pain, was a feeling she'd just started to notice. Her chakra was being pulled out of her body, like water slipping down the drain after the plug has been removed.

Laying down and concentrating on deep, smooth breaths to lessen the pain, Sakura tried to remember the conversation she'd had with her teacher about this scroll—what Tsunade had said, and what it would mean to Sakura now. If her chakra kept going like this, she could very easily die. The girl forced that thought out firmly, not needing it to distract her.

_Tsunade was working at a feverish pace, wanting to finish up the sealing process so she could get home and have a cool drink of sake. It'd been a difficult day. It almost always was when a new scroll came in; Tsunade never enjoyed the process of sealing up forbidden jutsu, but it was a job only she could do. And, the woman looked at her student, it was a job she was teaching Sakura to take up. Tsunade knew full well one day Naruto would be the Hokage and somehow she didn't think trusting him with dangerous scrolls was going to be wise. So, like many things, she was hoping to leave it to the girl, instead._

_Sakura watched her teacher work, trying to be quiet and useful; she hated being in the way when the woman was trying to work. It was hard work too, lasting hours and needing slow, efficient hands and minds to do the job. She couldn't help but ask the question, though, that she'd been dying to ask since the moment they'd started work, despite the risk of interrupting her teacher. Normally Tsunade told her all about the scrolls they sealed, but this time she hadn't spoken a word about it, and Sakura was dying to know._

_"Shishou," she began casually, holding out a long string for the woman to wrap tight around the scroll. Tsunade's caramel eyes drifted up, meeting the girl's steadily._

_"Yes Sakura?"_

_The girl shifted, moving one of her legs a little as it began to fall asleep. "Why is this scroll so important to seal? It just seems like something Orochimaru would want to keep if he knew it was powerful."_

_The blonde paused in her work and frowned down at her hands. "Sakura, I'm not sure—,"_

_Sakura didn't let her finish. "Please, Shishou? I swear I'm not going to talk to anyone about it."_

_Tsunade's answering look was indulgent and fond. "I know that Sakura; I trust you with that much, at least. Orochimaru probably left it behind because of the scrolls…interesting design. The man who created it, made it with one simple goal in mind—his wife had been killed months earlier in a raid and he was sure he could go back…"_

_"To save her?" she asked._

_"Yes. He created the scroll to save his wife." Tsunade finished tying up the knot around the scroll and set it in the center of an alchemy circle, the lines of which ran in intricate patterns, connecting to the larger outer circle where Tsunade was going to be seated when the sealing started. "Time travel, however, is against the laws of nature, and he had to be very creative to combat these laws." She added thoughtfully, "he was indeed, creative._

_"He made the scroll so that it only sent back his soul, leaving his physical body behind. But of course, as a medical ninja you should know that no soul can survive without the support of a body, so his chakra took care of that. As he traveled through time his physical body used up all of its chakra to make him a false body in the past."_

_Sakura rocked on her heels, sitting just outside the alchemy circle. She was careful not to smear the lines when she moved, knowing it would ruin the circle. "Is such a thing truly possible?"_

_"If you believe his story, then yes." Tsunade seated herself inside the circle, but did not begin the ceremony. "But it drained his chakra and therefore dramatically shortened his life span. To lose so much chakra so quickly is terribly damaging to the body."_

_Sakura nodded, having learned this when she was much younger in the academy. Chakra exhaustion was something that had to be treated immediately, before it was allowed to cause permanent damage to the chakra nerves._

_The blonde's face suddenly saddened, making her look near her age for once. "But, as the man soon found, the past was a deadly thing to tamper with."_

_Sakura swallowed and asked quietly, "why?"_

_"He hurried to save his wife from the rouge nins and ultimately **caused** her death. Because he was there—distracting her from her surroundings—the ninjas were able to get the upper hand and ended her life within seconds of his arrival. She died and, for some reason, whether because his control was lost, or for some other reason, he was returned to his real body._

_"He took the scroll to the Sandaime to be sealed and killed himself a few days later." She tapped her long red nails against her knee. "But he left behind his notes on the scroll, hoping to better help the Sandaime control the scroll and keep others from following in his footsteps. The man believed that he'd created a scroll that took people into the past to help them affect the future in a way they're meant to."_

_"So…he believed that he had created something that sent people to the past to make things that have already come to pass, happen again?"_

_"Yes. He had—without meaning to—created a scroll that sent him back to the place where he was meant to be. He was supposed to be there; he had always been the reason his wife died." Sakura swallowed that down in quiet, her mind slowly running over what her teacher had said. Tsunade continued speaking as Sakura's silence lingered on. "And then Orochimaru stole it just five years later. It was odd, though, that he should know of the scroll."_

_She glanced up, "why is that, Shishou?"_

_"By the time Sarutobi had received the scroll, he was growing wary of Orochimaru and would not have told him about the scroll. But Orochimaru has always had a knack for knowing things he shouldn't, so I suppose it's ridiculous to be surprised."_

_"I don't understand why Orochimaru would be interested in a scroll that could only send back his soul for a period of time." Sakura scratched her arm absently as she spoke. "He wouldn't be able to stay—unless his objective was to implant his knowledge on his past body?"_

_Tsunade smiled briefly. "Good guess. That's what I've always assumed, though since it concerns Orochimaru, I won't ever know the truth. Alright, no more dawdling, let's get this over with."_

Sakura opened her eyes to the mist surrounding her, banishing the memory from her mind's eye. Pain was blossoming in her chest, no longer ignorable. The girl moved a hand towards the ache, finding her skin was damp with warm blood; it was still a shallow wound and bleeding sluggishly. Was this a part of the jutsu? She didn't know. Through the haze of pain, she was grateful to finally understand how she'd arrived in this place.

Putting the mist and chakra draining together could only equal that her chakra core was creating her a body as she used the scroll to revert into another time. She'd hardly expected the trip to be pleasant, but she also wasn't preparing for the agony she was being put through. With each moment she sat there, unable to do anything, her body slowly died from chakra deprivation. It was a painful process and her limbs felt like they were slowly being stretched out, while at the same time her body was being crushed inward.

And the wound on her chest, that seemed to be carving itself out with each passing moment, was the center of the suffering. Sakura ground her teeth together, refusing to let anything slip from between them. She'd chosen this path, and she wasn't going to let the pain win out. She slid sideways to the floor, breathing in gasping breaths of thick, cold air. Her head spun and she clenched her eyes shut tightly before opening them again.

She focused on the swirling clouds above that drifted without breeze. The harder she stared, the more there seemed to be color in them and, in fact, as she watched the color focused into a clearer image—it was her kitchen; cozy and pale pink, with sunlight streaming in through a large window. She'd just painted it recently with Naruto's help and there was still a wall left white from the weekend; they'd gotten an emergency mission and had been forced to leave the rest for later.

On the small stove top that took forever to heat was her breakfast; bacon, eggs and a small nutritious bowl of oatmeal packed with nuts and berries. The heat was turned off, thankfully, and the food sat as though abandoned. If she got absorbed into a book or, in this case a scroll, Sakura was likely to forget her breakfast.

Sakura let her eyes slide over to her kitchen table, finding, as she'd expected, her morning cup of tea—it was a strong black tea to substitute for coffee. Next to the tea was a scroll, the seal of which lay broken on the table beside it. The scroll had unrolled some, sitting still and innocent looking. The chair set before the work was empty and Sakura looked at the floor, finding that her body had slumped out of the chair and was now lying there, pale and unmoving. Soulless, now.

A noise broke through the silence: a loud, boisterous male voice. It was Naruto's voice, easily recognizable through years of hearing him yelling after her. When she didn't respond to him, he grumpily pushed open the kitchen window and dropped in. _"Sakura-chan, come on!"_

Only now did Sakura remember that she'd agreed to let Naruto walk her to work that morning, since he was due for a meeting with Tsunade. Naruto was the last person she wanted to find her body.

"_Sakura-chan?"_ he called again, this time questioning. He was coming around the fridge now and could see the food, untouched on the stove. It would only be a matter of seconds before he saw her body. He began to sing-song, but stopped in horror, _"Sa—ku—ra—cha—_," he stood over her body, which was even paler in the shadow he cast.

The boy knelt quickly, hands reaching out for her pulse. It must have been faint, for the worry in his eyes turned to fear. Naruto quickly and carefully rolled over her body, but stopped when he saw that the front of her shirt was soaked with blood. Like Sakura's soul—stuck in the opaque world—it seemed her own body was being cut into, too.

The boy searched around the house, brow furrowed as he sought out chakra signals, to make sure there wasn't an enemy in the house. Realizing that he was alone with the girl, the boy returned his attention to her unmoving form.

"_Just hang on, Sakura,"_ Naruto pleaded, sounding very small and unlike himself.

Sakura closed her eyes against Naruto's agonized face, feeling sick to her stomach now, and very tired. Why wasn't _any_ of this in the notes? Why hadn't the creator mentioned that she would be stuck in this place, seeing things going on in her own time? It didn't make any sense for him to leave such an important thing out. When her eyes opened, it was to find a totally different image playing out.

Naruto was in the hospital now, the staff running around him in a hurry to prep a bed for Sakura's body. Tsunade was standing next to him, speaking frantically, but too low for Sakura to hear. Sakura tried to watch, though, for some reason, her vision was starting to darken. The pain was fading too; pulling her towards sleep.

She tried to stay, needing to see. Tsunade waited until Naruto had set her body down in a hospital bed before she began peeling back Sakura's blood-stained shirt. She froze after opening only four buttons, the color draining from her face. She stared down at Sakura's chest, watching in horror as a crest slowly carved into Sakura's chest before their eyes.

Sakura stared too; able to recognize—like her teacher—what the symbol meant. It was the marking of the scroll she'd stolen; another thing that had been conveniently left out of the man's notes.

Tsunade's face twisted then, into a look of such betrayal and suffering that Sakura stopped trying to resist the pull of unconsciousness, stunned. She'd _never_ seen Tsunade look like that. And she knew, without a fragment of doubt, she'd never forget. Sakura fell into darkness, feeling crueler than she'd ever felt in the entirety of her life.

oOo

What seemed to be an eternity later, Sakura woke once more and was grateful to find that this time her eyes found a roof over her head. The relief was short lived; the room she was now residing in was neither her own, nor a room at the hospital. The walls were a pale, sunny yellow and over the lone window, which sat next to the bed she was in, were long white curtains cut from a lacy material. Sakura stared out the window into a tiny fenced-in back yard. The grass was getting high and the color was a green-yellow that suggested the beginnings of negligence.

The rest of the room was composed of a peeling dresser that had seen better days, a full-length mirror standing in the corner and a closed off closet. The girl tried to sit up to better see around and stopped immediately as a white-hot poker of pain raced up her spine and down her arms. Sakura grimaced. _That's right_, she thought dimly. Her body was now suffering from a severe chakra drain and, without a medical ninja, she might not be able to move for a long time.

She lay back on the bed, chills running through her body feverishly. _Okay_, she told herself firmly, _no more moving around_. Instead she went back to surveying the room, using only her eyes, which didn't hurt to move. As she was inspecting the hand-stitched quilt that was tucked firmly around her body, a woman entered the room, surprising her. She had jolted in surprise and was now clenching her jaw tightly, pain making her feeling like puking.

"Oh dear," the woman said, sounding worried. She wiped her hands off on her apron, leaving streaks of mud. "The doctor didn't think you'd be up for awhile, honey. You don't look so well."

Sakura didn't think the woman was a ninja out to kill her—though a person could never be careful enough—so she asked the first and most pressing question. "Where—?" Her voice came out like a toad's croak and _am I?_ died off. She couldn't remember her throat being this dry since she'd visited Sunagakure a summer earlier.

"Yasumidokoro." The woman came closer and Sakura studied her face. She had wide, gentle brown eyes set in a round face and lots of long, graying blonde hair that was pulled back into a tidy bun. The woman read the confusion in Sakura's eyes and continued, "it's a small town at the outskirts of Hi no Kuni. You must be from the city to have never heard of it."

Sakura wetted her mouth with her tongue before trying to speak again. It was easier this time, though there still wasn't enough moisture in her mouth and her throat hurt. "I..," she hesitated, "yes." She left it at that. It wasn't always safe to throw around what ninja village you were from—the woman, however, seemed to understand without having to be told.

The woman seemed surprised for only a moment, and then sad. "You must be a ninja, then. You're not the first ninja who's washed up on our shores alive, I'm afraid."

"Washed up?" Sakura repeated instantly, the words not clicking properly in her head. Why would she have washed up in some little tiny village on the outskirts of Hi no Kuni? Why was _none_ of these strange things written about in the scroll!

The woman's eyes filled with pity, "some of the local village boys found you floating downstream in the river. Your clothes were gone and you were bleeding." She made a short gesture towards Sakura's chest. "It's healing over fast, thankfully."

Sakura knew what the woman was talking about; the crest on her chest that had shown Tsunade just how ill-placed her trust in Sakura was. The girl closed her eyes firmly, not wanting to cry. How would she ever face Tsunade again after what'd she done? Could her teacher even forgive her? The thought that she might not made Sakura feel vaguely nauseous.

The woman watched the little color fade from Sakura's face. "Are you feeling worse, dear?"

"What—what year is it?" Sakura asked in a small, hollow voice, passing over the question. She didn't know if she'd ever feel better.

"Year?" The brown eyes peering down at her became confused. "Why it's nearing the thirtieth year of The Sandaime reign."

Sakura froze in absolute horror. "Thirtieth?" It had to be a bad joke. She couldn't have _possibly_ been sent to the wrong time, right?

No, no—of course not. She was going to go back to Sasuke's childhood and finish off Itachi. Save Sasuke, some way or another. She hadn't really planned the details. Maybe the woman was just…confused. She _did_ live far away from Konohagakure.

"How long has it been since the Yondaime Hokage died?"

The woman stared, eyes round. "Darling," she hesitated, looking very worried now, "there hasn't _been_ a Yondaime Hokage yet."

Oh god. Sakura shut her eyes and chewed on her bottom lip, feeling like crying. She had betrayed her teacher for **nothing**. There was no Sasuke TO save. She was stuck here without a cause. Because of her own foolish, selfish thoughts, she had trapped herself in the past where she couldn't even be of use to the people she loved.

Why would she come here?—what could possibly be so important to the future that it would require her to be in this place?

"The doctor left some medicine in case you were feeling unwell when you woke up, should I go get it?"

"Yes, please," Sakura whispered, doing rough calculations in her head. She had been sent almost forty years into the past. _Forty years_! Thirty seven, actually, if the woman was correct and it was the thirtieth year of the Sandaime's reign. IF that was right, Orochimaru would be—a sudden though struck her and she stared forward, barely noticing the elderly woman exit the room.

Orochimaru was sixteen, maybe seventeen; still a baby by his power's standards. According to Tsunade it had taken Orochimaru until about twenty to start really experimenting and growing powerful outside what their sensei had been teaching them. If that was right, and he wasn't as strong as he would be, one day…

Orochimaru was still, of course, a genius by his own right and undoubtedly powerful. But Sakura had been trained for many years now by someone who'd trained with him and knew how to best defend against his attacks. Beyond that he was still young and not as experienced in battle as his future self. Sakura felt a laugh bubble up from deep in her chest.

It spilled from her lips, hysterical and followed by an unwelcome barrage of tears. They streaked down her cheeks as she hiccupped out another giggle. _So that's why I'm here_, she thought dimly. The woman came back in with a small bag and a cup of chilled water. She looked at Sakura with pity and worry.

"Are you alright, dear?" She set the bag and water on the nightstand next to the bed and drew close a worn-looking rocking chair. She seated herself with difficulty into it, her joints obviously paining her. Sakura nodded mutely, studying what the woman doing as she shuffled a few bottles around, looking for the pain reliever left by the town's doctor.

Sakura watched her work before asking, "what's your name?"

The woman glanced up, brown eyes surprised. "I didn't tell you my name? Oh, I'm sorry, dear. My mind isn't what it used to be." She laughed a little, "Asami. Asami Suzuki. What about you?"

"Sakura…Endo." It was a very common, boring last name. She probably should have changed her first name, but she'd always been terrible about responding to aliases. She'd nearly given away her team on more than one occasion when she'd failed to respond to a cover name. It just wasn't something that came easily to her. Sakura _liked_ her name.

"Sakura?" Asami smiled at her gently, "it suits you."

"So I've heard." Sakura smiled wryly. A muscle in her neck twinged painfully and she studiously ignored it. Asami selected the pills and, after seeing Sakura's wary look, explained what the doctor had said they were for and listed the ingredients in them off the bottle. Sakura frowned at the tiny blue and red pills, not wanting to take them. It was dangerous to trust someone you didn't honestly know with something as important with medicine. But…

She desperately needed to get back on her feet and getting rid of some of the pain was going to help. She allowed Asami to help her sit up, grinding her teeth against the agony her body protested with. Sakura swallowed the pills and water hurriedly, ready to lie back down. Asami cleaned up what water she hadn't been able to force down her throat, attention on her task.

She hesitated when she was finished, having tucked Sakura back in and fluffed the pillow around her head in a grandmotherly fashion. "Sakura, you should come with us to Konohagakure." The girl turned surprised green eyes on Asami. "We're all heading into the city's walls soon for protection. We're too close to the border, here. Soon we'll be just as involved as the ninja's in the attacks.

"Many of the girls who were kidnapped and hurt…" she paused, studying Sakura's face for any sign of fear. When she was satisfied Sakura wasn't going to have a relapse, she continued. "Those girls are given shelter and protection. You also need a proper healer; the doctor says only a medical ninja can fix your chakra core."

Sakura realized, as Asami spoke to her in a deceptively light, calm tone, that she thought Sakura had been raped. It was a logical explanation, considering the state Sakura had been in when she'd washed up. Sakura, uncomfortable with the subject and not wanting to be fretted over for something that hadn't really happened, hurriedly sought to change the subject.

"What's going on with the border?"

Asami paused in shock. She recovered quickly, picking up on Sakura's desire to talk about something else. "Amegakure is continuously pushing the border and we're not the only one's beginning to worry they're going to burst through, soon. Konohagakure is stretched thin at the moment."

_Amegakure_? Sakura frowned and tried to take her mind back to the history lessons they'd received in the Academy. _Oh_, she thought with sudden recollection, feeling idiotic. The second ninja war was just starting to stir up; the war that would gain Orochimaru and his teammates the title of Sannin and would immortalize them forever as legends.

Perhaps she _should _go with the women. Sakura frowned. Her best option on figuring out how to get back home was to go to Konohagakure—not only that, but Orochimaru lay beyond the city border and without Asami's help, Sakura would never be able to enter the city without being captured on suspicion of being a spy.

"I would like to go," Sakura said slowly, watching Asami's face. The woman seemed relieved and Sakura knew she hadn't wanted to face the option of leaving such a wounded girl behind to fend for herself.

"I'm glad." Asami reached out to pat Sakura's arm gently. Though the touch was light, it still sent little tingles of irritation down Sakura's nerve endings. "Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat."

"Yes, please." Sakura didn't want to eat; she wasn't even sure she could stomach the food…but she desperately needed the nutrition and carbohydrates to get her body into a semi-functioning condition. Even more than food, she needed a chakra transfusion, however unlikely that was to be. She watched the woman leave the room, before she turned her thoughts back to her present situation.

Sakura knew she must have come here to end Orochimaru's life—it was the only plausible scenario. There was no one else she held a connection to in this time. Except perhaps Tsunade. The girl frowned thoughtfully; thinking of her teacher had brought up a touchy subject: just how badly could she change the future? How much was she meant to change?

Orochimaru wasn't dead in her time…was she already predestined to fail? The girl chewed aimlessly on her lower lip, worrying it until it became painful.

Sakura ignored common sense, which told her she was making a mistake somewhere. Orochimaru's death was the only way she could explain her presence in this time. It was the _only_ thing, she refused to accept. This couldn't have all been a useless endeavor. To betray Tsunade and Naruto for something that wasn't going to work…she couldn't face that possibility. It was a terrible thought.

First, the girl told herself, trying to soothe away her own nightmarish fears, she needed to get her body into working order. That meant rest and food to get her chakra flowing once more. She would never be able to kill Orochimaru with a body stiff with agony—he'd have her dead before she could finish blinking.

Closing her eyes, Sakura concentrated on taking long, deep breaths. _Rest_, she told her overworked brain. Soon she would feel the satisfaction of watching the life die from Orochimaru's cold eyes. Warmed by the mere thought, Sakura dozed.

* * *

**A/N:** Hello everyone, I'm back again with another attempt to write this horrid beast of a story. I was re-inspired to pick up work (after a serious downslide in confidence…) after seeing a piece of fanart created by DarkFox14. It got me back into my love for not only Orochimaru, but this story and…here it is. I can't promise super-fast updates; this chapter was a struggle to get through. But I can promise I will _try_.

So thank you to everyone who's been sticking along with me, and never given up that I might get off my lazy arse to poke at this dead thing some more. Much love!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor do I make any claims towards ownership. I am not making any money from the writing of this fanfiction.


	3. Chapter Two: So Far Away

**Chapter Two;**

No more waiting for the end of every day that I will spend,

wishing that I only had a choice.

_*So Far Away, Crossfade_

* * *

Sakura kept her eyes closed tightly, her mind consumed by endlessly looping thoughts as she sought to keep herself from falling asleep. Sleep brought the dreams she didn't want to see—though dreams probably wasn't the right word for them. Visions, maybe; images of her own time and the things happening within. She couldn't bear to see that haunted look on her sensei's face as the woman was forced to witness to Sakura's betrayal of her trust every day.

Naruto's pain was far worse, however. She knew he suffered the loss of _another_ teammate greatly. It was a pain she'd always told herself as a child she wouldn't make Naruto feel and yet here she was—putting him through another traitorous friend abandoning him. Sakura told herself firmly that when Sasuke was back safely in their lives he would forgive her. She was going to give them a better future; one where they could always be together as Team Seven.

The girl sighed and stared resolutely at the ceiling over her head, tracing out cracks in the plaster as she listened to Asami moving around in the kitchen. She forced the disturbing thoughts from her mind. It wouldn't do to let her friends in her own time haunt her—they needed her to keep moving forward here and not fall behind; this falsehood would not be for naught.

Sakura propped herself up one elbow, ignoring the way her muscles bunched and strained, leaving her side in fire, to grasp the glass of water beside her bed. She drank deeply, taking one of the many pain pills the town's doctor had left for her to take when she woke. She'd never slept, but she'd been keeping careful note of the time and it'd been six hours since her last dose.

She knew it wasn't just the pills that were finally smoothing out the pain and allowing her to move; Tsunade, back in the present, was doing everything possible to keep Sakura's body from falling into chakra-deprivation shock. The constant stream of healing chakra was fixing both Sakura's real body, and allowing snakes of chakra to slip into her false body, allowing for it to heal as well.

It was a slow process and she sometimes felt like she'd never be able to move around this world. She'd need her body in pristine condition if she was to inflict any damage on Orochimaru; something that was already shaping up to be a sort of suicide mission.

Those were defeatist thoughts, she grumbled, flopping back to the bed, irritated with herself.

She'd only been here a week—it was barely enough time to gauge whether or not she could fulfill her purpose for coming here. Though…her mind trickled back towards worry…maybe it was useless to even bother going to Konohagakure with Asami. Sakura had seen firsthand what chakra-draining could do to a ninja after a long, strenuous battle—and they'd lost their chakra slowly, during the duration of their fight. She'd lost it all at once. It was a miracle in and of itself that she was even alive to be contemplating her luck.

It could've been a perk of the scroll, which seemed likely, though she didn't understand why _this_ hadn't been mentioned in the notes. How had the creator of the scroll moved around when he'd visited the past? Would it _ever_ be possible?

"Bah," Sakura told the room, squinting more firmly at the cracks, trying to make patterns of their lines. She would leave today with Asami and the rest of the village for Konohagakure. There was no point in staying; she'd just be found and murdered by enemy ninjas and who knew what would happened if she died in this time. It was unlikely she'd just zap back to her own body; her mind would be dead and her body left to wither away.

So she would have to face Orochimaru, one way or another—which meant she needed a cover story. Thankfully she'd had the foresight to be very brief with Asami, which meant she could flesh out and test her story on the old woman, though the thought of lying made her squirm with guilt. Asami had been exceedingly kind to her and she hated to lie. But it was lie, or risk being found out and the latter just wasn't an option.

The easiest way to gain Konohagakure's trust was to make herself a ninja from Kusagakure; the country had a river that flowed into Konoha and made her arrival to the village plausible. Beyond that Kusa was allied with Konoha and, though the country was by this point in the war almost gone, Konohagakure would not turn their back on an ally ninja. She could safely hide in her Kusa persona for months, if not years. It had been a long time after the war's end, before the country was stable enough to start looking for all their scattered ninjas.

If someone was to send in a report that they had taken in a Kusagakure ninja, it would take a long time for a representative to come back for Sakura. In this she was certain. Years of studying at the academy were finally paying off; Iruka-sensei hadn't been lying when he'd told them the past was an important thing to learn.

As for the story beyond her home, it was best to keep it simplistic: she was her team's medic-nin and, when they'd been ambushed everyone had been killed, Sakura had been lucky to escape with her life. The scar on her chest? She could only guess it was one of the killer's sick sense of humor to carve up a dead body.

Sakura had been dropping clues to Asami about her "past" telling the woman only that she hadn't enough chakra to finish healing herself, since she'd used everything to keep herself from dying. It would be harder to convince a medical ninja like herself that, since the strain of drained chakra was so extreme, but stranger things had happened in the medical world, so she might just get away with it.

Green eyes drifted to the doorway as Asami's soft footsteps padded over. The woman poked her head around, a smile on her thin lips. "Sakura, dear, the boys are here. You ready?"

To be moved? Never.

Sakura smiled back, ignoring the knowledge that she was about to be in a lot of pain. "Of course, Asami-san. Is everyone else…?"

"We're one of the last. I've gotten all the things I wanted to take. I have a nice soft spot set up for you in the cart. It won't be as nice as that bed, but I'll have to do I'm afraid."

A boy cleared his throat behind her and Asami moved to allow him to enter the room. He was one of the village kids; a tall youth with brown skin from days spent in the sun and a welcoming smile. Sakura knew him to be one of the teens who'd found her in the river a week earlier.

"Hey Sakura-san!" His hazel eyes took in her wince of expectation and he grimaced back at her. "Sorry about this in advance."

"Its fine," she told him wearily, "let's just get it over with."

The boy knelt down beside the bed and, moving very slowly, hooked his arms under her knees and back, lifting her up with excruciating carefulness. It didn't help; Sakura ground her teeth together as ever part of her body screeched its protest at the movement. She forced herself to keep her neck straight, holding her head up, refusing to allow it to fall to his shoulder—she wasn't going to give any sign of weakness.

Asami smiled at her stubbornness, collecting up Sakura pills from the table and putting them into the bag at her waist. She then bent to take the quilt off the bed, folding it with a few deft twists. That she tucked under arm before following the two teens out. In front of her modest house was a covered cart already stuffed full of the older towns folk and children of the village.

Sakura looked behind the boy's shoulder as they left Asami's house; it was her first time seeing anything but the room she'd been stuck in. The rest of Asami's house consisted of a bedroom towards the back, a small poky living room with an elderly fireplace and a tidy little kitchen. Sakura could see the loss Asami felt as she closed the door to her home, putting the key under a small stone in the front garden.

It was merely gesture; when enemy nins came to check the village they would kick down doors and probably burn everything down. For most of the people, it was the last time they would ever see their house intact.

There was another boy inside the cart, helping people get in and settle down. He took Sakura from the other boy moving her to the back, stepping carefully over limbs as he moved. Sakura smiled, seeing the look of concentration on his face. She got settled on a few pillows, though it had been an attempt at comfort, she knew the ride ahead would prove to be agonizing.

The boys helped Asami in and then moved to help other villagers in; a very pregnant woman was seated next to Sakura; from the width she was either _very_ far along or carrying more than one. The teen wondered if it was smart to move the woman, but knew anyway that there really wasn't an option. Asami unfolded the quilt and, without listening to Sakura's protest, tucked it around the girl, offering the other end to the pregnant woman, who accepted with a smile.

"Hush, Sakura," Asami instructed. She took a worn shawl from her bag. "It's going to get cold tonight."

"It's the summer," Sakura pointed out, though she knew it was a losing battle.

One of the older women sitting a few people down snorted. "The summer it may be, but a frigid winter is upon us even now."

"We've angered the gods, no doubt," another woman agreed. She had a long hooked nose and spoke through a set of obviously false teeth. "Our crops would've failed; too many early chills."

Sakura glanced at Asami, frowning as she murmured softly, "what do they mean?"

"Though it should be quite warm we've had two snows this summer." Asami shook her head. "We've never gotten snow in July here. Not for many years."

The hooked-nose woman overheard despite their attempts to smother their talk. Though she'd lost her teeth, her hearing was in excellent condition. "Not since that Uchiha fool went and tore up the Earth trying to over throw the Shodai Hokage. Humph! He got what he deserved!"

"Uchiha?" The pregnant woman spoke up, looking interested. "I've heard of that clan. They have the eyes that can peer into the future."

"Madara Uchiha." The woman spat at the floor. Sakura wrinkled her nose up in distaste. "I was just a girl then, you know…it changed the face of Konohagakure their fights; we were just a new country then and we did_ not_ need that fool's interference."

Sakura closed her eyes, listening to things in the distance, trying to place herself far away from the cart and the gossiping women. Their conversations drifted around ninjas before turning towards local and distant scandals. It wasn't something she was interested in hearing. Within moments of closing her eyes, the exhaustion she'd been pushing off caught up with her and the warm pressure against her sides lulled her to sleep.

oOo

_Tsunade sat beside Sakura's hospital bed, cradling one of the girl's icy hands between her own. She rubbed them, trying to generate warmth though she knew it would do no good. She had pushed herself to exhaustion to keep Sakura from dying and this was the best she could do; bringing the girl to this halfway place where she seemed to be on the brink of death at every moment. And she would need to start again soon—the girl's lips had gone blue again and her chest was slowing, even with the aid of oxygen._

_She lifted tired eyes to the boy sitting in a chair by the window. Naruto didn't look back at her, though she knew full well he could feel the pressure of her gaze on the back of his neck. His eyes, like hers, were tired; and dreamless—the hope had gone out. He truly believed, despite the times she'd told him to have faith, that Sakura would die._

_He'd seen her at the worst and knew, like Tsunade, that there really hadn't been any improvement at all. It was hard to hold onto hope when you knew how high the odds were stacked against you._

_Tsunade set the hand back down, her body protesting as she stood. She'd been siting too long…she needed to get back to work. Summoning the nearby nurse, Tsunade called for Shizune and another of her best healers, ready to start forcing her chakra into Sakura again and hoping, this time, it would hold._

_Sakura watched this from someplace that was not quite here nor there. She didn't feel as though she were in the room; merely watching it from some high above place. She wanted to touch her teacher's aged face and beg Tsunade to stop—the Hokage __**never**__ let her control over her age jutsu slip away, as it was now. She wanted to take Naruto into her arms and reassure him that this was all for him: that she still loved him more dearly than any other person in this world. But her outstretched hands met only air as she swept her fingers through the image, distorting it._

_She pulled back in shock, waiting for the image to clear again. But it had changed; begun to darken—it was an underground cellar of some sort. She could just barely make out the people within…a man, speaking to a boy, who held himself with an angry sort of arrogance. The boy was beautiful, with aristocratic features and cold crimson eyes. _

_Sakura's chest clenched and she couldn't hold in the helpless cry that sprang from her lips—_

"Sasuke!" Sakura awoke with a start, sweat beading on her forehead, her heart racing in her chest. The cart rattled violently, making her tensed muscles spasm. The girl chewed harshly on the inside of her lip to keep from cursing in pain, and crying at seeing Sasuke after so long. He was changing, as she feared; it seemed like there was almost nothing in those icy eyes that she remembered. Sasuke had _never_ looked at her or even an enemy like that. What was Orochimaru doing to him?

Hatred rose like bile in her throat and she clamped down more harshly, tasting copper as her mouth filled with blood. She clenched her hands into fists, the desire to kill filling her to such a violent level that she hardly could believe herself. She was distracted from her revelation by a hand reaching over to touch her cheeks with a scrap of cloth.

It was the pregnant girl, her eyes filled with sympathy. "Nightmares?"

Sakura looked at the handkerchief before taking it slowly, "thank you. I...guess, yes. Or maybe, just bad thoughts." She hadn't realized there were tears rolling silently down her cheeks and she hurriedly mopped them up, glad most of the other people in the cart were still asleep. The girl looked at her with consideration, lips pursed. She touched her stomach at length, rubbing in large circular motions.

"Bad thoughts, hmm? I have those more often than I'd like to admit." The girl smiled sadly. "Fears come easily when you imagine raising a child in a world like this."

Sakura looked down, "how close are you?"

"I'm due any day now, honestly. The doctor didn't want me to go, but what choice do I have? It will be impossible to travel once she's born. I didn't want to risk being trapped in the village when it's destroyed."

"It might not be." Sakura hastened to reassure her, but even as she spoke them, she knew how insubstantial those words sounded. "I…"

The girl smiled again. "Don't worry about it. Sometimes there are things in this world we must let go of. I've come to accept this reality." She winked, "besides, there are still many things in this world left to discover. It is not the end of everything."

"I wish I had your confidence."

The girl laughed, tipping her head back. "Oh lord, don't say such things. If you only knew the worries and ridiculous fears I have at times! I think my husband worries for me." She shook her head and then, realizing something, awkwardly stretched a hand out to Sakura. "I've only just remembered that we have yet to introduce ourselves. I'm Emiko, Kato Emiko."

"Endo Sakura." Sakura had a moment's hesitation over her new last name, but the other woman didn't seem to notice. They shook hands, Sakura ignoring the coldness of her hands compared to the girl's—it was just something she was getting used to. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Sakura?" Emiko grinned, eyes traveling to the girl's shockingly pink hair. "It—"

"Fits, I know," Sakura interrupted, tone dry. They shared a quite chuckle, nearly rousing Asami, who rolled over with a quite snore, her shoulders hunched. Just as the woman predicted the night was a cold one. Sakura leaned over to collect the woman's shawl from the floor, carefully draping it back over Asami's shoulders.

Her back pinched uncomfortably as she returned to her position against the wall and she rubbed it hurriedly, clenching her teeth together. Emiko gasped, seeing the look on her face. "Oh dear, I forgot entirely!" The girl moved clumsily towards the bag Asami had given her that afternoon to pass along to Sakura. From it she collected a bottle of pills and a canteen of water.

Sakura took both, feeling relieved. The pills didn't help _much_ with the pain, but it was better than nothing at all. This cart would be the death of her, she was positive. Never in her life had she longed to be able to run through the trees as she normally would have, than she did now. The pink-haired teen downed the pills on a gulp of water, capping the canteen and giving it back.

Emiko put them both away, settling back against the wood walls, curling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Sakura held off sleep as long as she could, keeping up a an easy conversation with the other girl, talking about nothing of real interest. Emiko told Sakura of her dreams for her new home, names she was considering for her child and the fears she had that their world would face upheaval again someday. It was strange for Sakura to hear such basic, common hopes, compared to the dreams she had for her own life.

How could she tell this girl that her dreams involved bringing a traitor ninja back to her village and killing one of the most powerful men alive in the process? Sakura tried to remember when her own dreams had been as simple—once, her life had been filled with nothing more than the daydreams that Sasuke would sweep her off her feet and they'd make lots of little Uchiha babies together. It was hard to imagine a time when she'd been so idiotically innocent.

Emiko changed the subject, seeing Sakura's faraway look, to something easier; new foods she couldn't wait to try in Konohagakure. Sakura settled gratefully into this new topic and the girls continued on until Emiko finally fell asleep, her head on Sakura's shoulder as she snored quietly. It was almost an endearing noise, compared to the snores she was used to. How Naruto expected to never be detected at night was beyond her. She could always hear him long before she entered his apartment in the morning.

When the sun begin to rise, Sakura let her head fall back against the cart, her neck at an awkward angle. She prayed, closing her eyes, for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. It was not to be however; what felt like only minutes later she was woken as the cart began its journey through a particularly rocky area. Sakura grimaced, but was overall glad to be awake. Watching Tsunade pour her dwindling chakra into what seemed like her dead body was more than she could take right now.

"Have a little faith in your own ninjas, would you?" One of the old women griped to another, fully shattering Sakura's dreams for peace. She sat up, ignoring the unpleasant way her neck cracked.

"How can we?" It was a man who answered, shaking his pipe at her. It wasn't lit and hadn't been lit the entire trip; the one time he'd tried he'd gotten a thorough tongue lashing for trying to smoke around children. "They've never done anything for our kind before."

Confused now, Sakura sat up fully, her interest piqued. Asami frowned at this statement. "How can you say that? The Shodaime did everything in his power to give us the life we've gotten to live for so many years." The woman gave her companions a fierce look, "and his students will continue his legacy, I'm sure."

Emiko spoke up, sounding excited. Sakura was surprised to see her so lively, considering she hadn't gotten much more sleep than Sakura. "I agree! Koichi has told me tales from the city of the Sandaime's students; their power is rapidly becoming legendary."

The woman with false teeth snorted decisively. "Your husband is as foolish as they come, believing anything the city folk tell him!"

The girl scowled, "we're about to be city folk, too old woman."

One of the boys who'd previously helped Sakura into the cart piped up. "It's true, granny." He was sitting on the edge of the cart, waiting for his turn to drive one of the lead horses. He looked to be in good need of a nap but, like most of the men, he was staying awake to make sure nothing was to attack the carts as they moved slowly through the forest.

"And how would you know, boy?"

He straightened up, looking self important. Sakura hid a laugh behind her hand. "_I_ got to go into the city last month, granny, in case you'd forgotten."

One of the women muttered, "how could we forget, the way they all go on…"

The boy scowled. "They were amazing! I mean…we didn't see them, but everyone was talking. They just took back one of the city's in Kusagakure single-handedly. Without any help!"

Sakura knew this story well, since it was one of the first real victories for the soon-to-be Sannin, but such news would have come as a shock to Sakura_ Endo_. "What?" she said, forcing the shock into her tone. Everyone looked over with guilt on their faces, having forgotten Sakura was among them.

"Oh, sorry, miss—I didn't mean…"

"It doesn't matter! What city was it?" Sakura shook her head at the boy.

"I-I don't know the name. It was a border city, like ours." The boy, rushed on, feeling horrible now for bringing it up. "T-They say that one of his students defeated an entire company all on his own."

Sakura felt the first real cord of dread coil in her stomach. Please, _no_. "Do you know his name?"

"Orochimaru," the boy said. One of the women mentioned recognizing the name and the conversation went on, Sakura deaf to it. Her prayers that a younger, more inexperienced Orochimaru would be easier to kill had been swiftly crushed. He was stronger; stronger than she on a good day, most likely, and she was **not** having a good day. Her body would barely last through an entire minute of fighting with her condition like it was.

She would need to think of something else. The girl curled up, resting her head on her knees, her skull a mass of pain as she hurriedly tried to rewrite all her week's worth of planning. She had no more than two days left until they reached the village at the pace they were traveling. Once there she would need to have her story perfected, or the consequences of being called out on her lies would…well, she wouldn't need to worry about staying in this time much longer.

So now what? Sakura chewed on the cut she'd made the night before, making it bleed as she let her thoughts turn over in circles. She'd have to use her knowledge of the past to her advantage; there was nothing else for it.

She'd need to use them from an angle someone in Kusagakure would know, but she had enough information to, hopefully, keep herself useful for at least a couple, maybe more, months if she stretched it out. The Sandaime Hokage was a kindly sort of man; he would not push, or force her to reveal her country's secrets. He would understand her fear and reluctance to relinquish private information from her the inner workings of her country.

But other's might not—namely Orochimaru. They might begin to question where her information was coming from. They might eventually come to consider her a spy.

The girl knew the dangers in her plan; the flaws and gaping holes that could prove to be fatal, but she also knew that she had very little options at this point. This was the last straw she had to grasp and she was going to have to roll with it. Sakura closed her eyes, closing off the voice around her entirely, turning inwards as she began to refine her ideas.

* * *

**A/N:** Whoo, chapter two! And it only took me forever to finish it! I went on vacation to VA to participate in an awesome anime convention called Nekocon~ I had an amazing time this year and I can't wait to go again! If you'd like to see pictures (btw, this is me _shamelessly_ promoting my cosplay group :D) you can visit my deviantart page, youtube or friend request my facebook page. Bother me. I might update faster.

In other news, thanks to everyone for sending in awesome reviews, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, see you next time! All the links to the pages mentioned above can be found in my profile.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, nor do I make any claims towards ownership. I am not making any money from the writing of this fanfiction.


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